Utility to scrap cleanup contract

By Danica Coto

Published 2:42 pm, Sunday, October 29, 2017

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The head of Puerto Rico’s power company said Sunday the agency will cancel its $300 million contract with Whitefish Energy Holdings amid increased scrutiny of the tiny Montana company’s role in restoring the island’s power system following Hurricane Maria.

The announcement by Ricardo Ramos came hours after Gov. Ricardo Rossello urged the company to scrap the deal.

Ramos said Whitefish will continue with current work, but the contract would then be scrapped — leading to delay of 10 to 12 weeks in completing the work.

“It’s an enormous distraction,” he said about why he canceled the contract. “This was negatively impacting the work we’re already doing.”

Federal investigators have been trying to investigate the contract awarded to the small company from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s hometown and the deal, signed shortly before the hurricane hit, is being audited at the local and federal level.

Rossello said he has requested that crews from New York and Florida help restore power in Puerto Rico as he criticized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for not meeting its goals.

Roughly 70 percent of the island remains without power more than a month after Hurricane Maria struck the U.S. territory on Sept. 20.

Ramos has said that Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority reached a deal with Whitefish just days before the hurricane struck, saying that he spoke with at least five other companies that demanded similar rates, in addition to a down payment the agency did not have. Ramos also has said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had approved of the deal, something the agency has denied.

FEMA has raised concerns about how Whitefish got the deal and whether the contracted prices were reasonable. The 2-year-old company had just two full-time employees when the storm hit, but it has since hired more than 300 workers.

Whitefish Energy Holdings is based in Whitefish, Mont. Zinke, a former Montana congressman, issued a statement saying he had “absolutely nothing to do with Whitefish Energy receiving a contract in Puerto Rico.”